From 1931 to 1937 he was an instructor at Saint Cyr, where he suffered a broken leg when he fell from a horse. He served briefly with French forces in the occupation of the Ruhr, the industrial heart of Germany, and was later sent to Morocco, where he learned to speak Arabic and Berber, skills that would serve him later. It had survived the upheaval of the Revolution to serve in the army of Napoleon and continued to serve in the army in the Great War, during which Philippe’s uncle was killed.īorn into this military tradition Philippe went to Saint Cyr, the French military academy, graduating in 1924. The family was one of minor nobility that had served France since the Crusades. Philippe François Marie de Hauteclocque was born on November 22, 1902. The Mass for the Dead was held at a packed Notre Dame Cathedral before his body was laid to rest in Les Invalides near Napoleon and beside those of other heroes of France. December 8, the day of the funeral, was declared a national day of mourning. Leclerc’s body was placed under the Arc de Triomphe next to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier for eight hours for public viewing. His wartime boss General Charles de Gaulle wept openly. Marching slowly behind the body were some 10,000 veterans of Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division (2e DB), who had spontaneously gathered from throughout France to honor their beloved commander. The convoy bearing the coffins of the crash victims entered Paris by the same route that Leclerc had taken when he liberated the city in 1944. State funerals were reserved for assassinated presidents or great maréchals such as Ferdinand Foch and Joseph Joffre. Even as his body was being transported back to France the government decided that he should be given a state funeral. Among the dead was French General Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque. On November 28, 1947, a converted North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber crashed in the Algerian desert, killing all aboard.
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